QuakerInfo.com Forum

[kevin roberts]

431 AD, the first one. But I'm no authority of Christian doctrine, as most of it is just what I read about and not what I get told. I have a really shallow understanding of it all.

It was a Christology dispute, wasn't it? Mary was dragged in because they were arguing over whether what she laid in the manger was the Logos or not.

The various councils that attempted to reconcile various theological details are complex. They're interesting because they've had so much influence on the later pre-reformation doctrines, less so on the earlier Friends, I think.

Fox was no doctrinal historian. Somewhere in his Journal is a single reference to one of the AnteNicene Fathers, and I can't find it because my copy is about worn out and all the yellow postits that I use to find things are mostly just yellow dust now. I can't even remember who it was. "Eu ..." somebody?

[wheatpenny]

[kevin roberts]

I guess it was, Jeff. I can't find the reference in my Nickall's Journal (it's too dark in my truck cab in Iowa) but in a letter to the King of Poland in 1678, Fox quotes Eusebius about a vision the early Christians had to leave Jerusalem before it was torched, and this was bound into the multi-volume Journal printed in the 1830's.

The Nickall's Journal is really short, because it leaves out all the tracts and letters and so forth that Fox told people to bundle into his Journal. I guess I have to look at this again, because I'm running across references to Roman poets and various other ancients that Fox seems to have been able to quote in his less-condensed works.

Or maybe Fox just told people to take his manuscripts and "sprinkle in some old Greeks here and there to make it sound better."

[Gracie]

[michaeldavidjay]

I must have been one of your students -- though, old Greeks have influenced my thought processes.
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Do Friends speak to today's condition, or are we only a historical footnote?

[Anthony]

[Laurence17]

I have prayed the Hail Mary most of my life, coming from an anglican background. And I still do when I feel so moved. It's a great tradition of spirituality and icons can be supportive of one's prayer / spirituality.

Also the whole Cenacle idea -- how

they continued together in prayer with Mary the mother of Jesus (Acts).
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Abwoon : divine progenitor, breathing mindfulness through poor in spirit and the resonating realm of ruach

[CelticNorth]

It may well be that to fully understand the symbolism and meaning of the "biblical" Mary, one has to explore within her origins the older stories of Isis and Ishtar, who preceded her. The old goddess cults of Canaan may have never really died, but seem to have been only altered in form during the patriarchal upsurtation and submission. We are able to appreciate in our own era a broader historical background of the religious thought and symbolism of the New Testament age than was availible to early Quaker writers, mainly because the Rosetta Stone lay buried, undiscovered and uninterpeted, whose discovery opened up the translation of older religious texts at a later date. Fox and Barclay would perhaps be having a field day at the British Museum if they were alive in this era. It has always seemed to me that early Quaker thought was forged from the fire and cauldron of English politics and resistance to the Church of England, rather than from knowledge of the historical age from which the New Testament took form. What we belive seems so decisively formed by history, a look in the rear view mirror seems imperitive.

[Anthony]

[CelticNorth]

Very nice reply, Anthony. There are still some Christian denominations that call her the "whore of Bablyon", which usually is used in conjunction with other tirades against the Catholic Church and the reverance they bestowed upon her. Whether she was in fact the agent of a "virgin birth", chosen by God because she was free of sin, or because earthly lineage linking Jesus of Nazareth to the kingship of David in order to support him in later claims as the long awaited Messiah of Jewish tradition, there seems be a long standing debate over her role and importance in biblical literature. Like two separate stories being intertwined and told as a new one is my take. Similar to the language and literature ascribed to other long standing goddess cults prior to Mary, there also existed in other Messianic literature which was outside of the Judaic tradition, that also called for a messianic redeeemer and savior, by which the world and humanity were to be saved. For me personnally, by not having a belief in original sin, both themes become secondary to the immediate revelation experienced by that of God which lies within.

[Anthony]

[CelticNorth]

Anthony, the reason, I think, that one may associate Mary with the Goddess cults of the ancient near east is perhaps due to the profound similarity with the Osiris, Isis and Horus imagery also found in the embodiment of Joseph, Mary and Jesus as Father, Mother and Son. Reverance for Mary through history may is also due to the symbolism of devine fertility, which as we know, the Catholic Church incorporated from Easter, or Estros and the female fetility rituals of Spring, upon whose date they assigned the celebration of the reserrection of Jesus. The Spring Equinox on the full moon was the reigning sign of the goddess fertility rites, which is why there are all those easter bunnies, eggs and baby chicks every year. So much has been written about the Pagan origins of Easter and its associaition with the ancient goddess cults, that we often forget the celebration of rebirth of eaths winter death is as old as agricultural societies themselves. These themes are historically intertwined, and it is performed through Mary in Christianity, as it was Astarte, Ishtar and Isis before her.

[Anthony]

[CelticNorth]

Anthony, no one is claiming that Mary is a "Goddess" in the Catholic Church, or that she is revered as such; my point is only that many attributes assigned to her have their history and origins in attributes and sybolism parrallel to earlier goddess rites and rituals, and were later incorporated into the portrayal of Mary in the NT. It is a slow historical process of ritual change and focus of worship, and has occured in Judism as well. The Jewish ritual form of the Passover Seder, for example, has its origins in the Hellenistic era Greco-Roman table manners and dietary habits of the Greek Symposia, or banquet. The Jewish Sedder and Haggadah are missing from the second temple period descriptions of Pesah in both the book of Jubilees, by Philo and Josephus, and the current ritual forms of the Seder are now clearly recognized as being a borrowed meal ritual. Early Quakers, themselves "dissenters", altered faith practices of the Church of England into a new form and religious sect which only mirror, me thinks, a process of change that has occured in all faith traditions. I only think it speaks to a wholeness and unity of understanding when we see how these types of changes occur through time and previous historical periods. I get challenged on sources quite often, as well we all should, and the referance for the Passover Seder - Greco-Roman meal ritual analysis come from Siegrfied Steins "The Influence of Symposia Literature on the Literary Form of the Pesah Haggadah". Changes in relgious theology, language, ritual and symbolism over time may be the norm, actually.

[Anthony]

Hi Mc.